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By mining never-before-heard tapes, rare archival footage, and interviews with close friends and family WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? sensitively explores the constant state of opposition that trapped and tortured one of the most influential, beloved, provocative, and least understood artists of our time – Nina Simone.
Director: Liz Garbus
Share this film. Give others the chance to be inspired and moved by Nina Simones story.
Learn about The Eunice Waymon-Nina Simone Memorial Project, an organization based out of North Carolina, that aims to keep Simone’s memory alive through varying projects.
Join the UN’s Let’s Fight Racism! campaign. Civil rights have come a long way, but there is still plenty of work to be done to establish and guarantee equal rights for all.
Learn more about the High Priestess of Soul. Read one of the many books written on her life and influence, and listen to the songs in her extensive back catalogue.
Support the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance that offers help and support to individuals suffering from depression and bipolar disorder, as well as providing assistance to families and loved ones.
‘We were in our edit room when the events of Ferguson were unfolding. It reminds you that the struggle is ongoing’”
Read more on Salon.
“In February 1963, Mr. Stroud resigned from the NYPD, just four months short of being promoted to lieutenant, to assume management of Nina’s career. He arranged for a very successful concert tour of colleges during the 1960s…”
Read the full obituary here.
Read the article here.
Listen to the podcast at Stuff You Should Know.
“What does a 21st century protest song sound like?
If you’re folk musician Ezra Furman, it has echoes of Bob Dylan. If you’re legendary songwriter Lauryn Hill, it borrows from Rodgers and Hammerstein. If you’re hip-hop artist J. Cole, it’s an elegy with a beat.”
Continue reading on PBS.
“Few sights or sounds conjure up the passion and purposefulness of the Southern Civil Rights Movement as powerfully as the freedom songs that provided a stirring musical accompaniment to the campaign…”
Continue reading here.
“’My favorite escapes from depression are meds and writing,’ says Diana Spechler in a New York Times opinion piece. “But I can’t do both at once.”
Friends have been forwarding to me her columns in theGoing Off series, which chronicles her attempt to wean off the medications she takes for depression, anxiety, and insomnia.”
Continue reading here.
“If American racism were a thing of the past, nine men and women who went to church last Wednesday evening would be alive. What happened in Charleston, S.C., is not unfathomable or even ambiguous. It’s a story much older than the nation, a story that began when the first Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619: the brutalizing and killing of black people because of the color of their skin.”
Continue reading here.
Listen to our playlist with music from the film on Spotify.
"An often ELECTRIC, bracingly urgent documentary"
The New York Times
"WHAT HAPPENED features some of the best concert footage and musical performances in recent music doc memory..."
Roger Ebert.com
"[An] IMPRESSIVE and DEEPLY FELT documentary"
The Los Angeles Times
